1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to inventory devices and methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
Identifying and locating devices within a company can be a time consuming, expensive task. For example, inventorying physical networking assets includes not only the identification of the manufacturer, model number, and serial number of chassis based devices, but also the identification of the internal modules, blades, and/or daughter boards within those devices.
Maintenance and service contracts rely on an accurate assessment of physical networking assets deployed. Mistakes in inventorying such physical assets can cause the wrong part to be shipped in the event of a component failure. This can lead to extended downtime of the network resource, missed service level agreements, as well as additional shipping and labor costs. Companies expend additional operating expenses in renewing maintenance contracts on networking equipment that has been retired, lost, or replaced, because its current status is unknown.
Due to similar issues, companies spend capital resources for networking equipment they already possess, but cannot locate or do not know exists. These additional capital expenditures increase depreciation costs and decrease free capital for other projects. Newer inventory may be received and then deployed before the older inventory is deployed. The older inventory may become obsolete before being deployed and utilized productively within a company. It would be desirable to address at least some of these shortcomings of the prior art.